AIBU to off DD financial reward for GCSE grades?

[BlackBean2023]

DD is going into y11 and last year I made a deal with her- every 9 gets £200, every 8 £100 and every 7 £50 (she's at a selective school- straight 7-9s not unusual). I've doubled the amount as a motivator for Spanish and chemistry where she's not trying and currently predicted a 5.

She told my SIL yesterday who said it's out of order but would tell me why she thought so. AIBU? I can afford it and DD is motivated by money. The grades are reasonable and obtainable for her.

SIL doesn't have teenagers so it's not a cousin comparison thing..

"In our family we don't celebrate mediocrity."

You really should celebrate outstanding effort and engagement, great attitude and all-round effort without labelling this 'mediocrity'. Well, unless you want your kids dissecting it all with their counsellor in ten years.

I did this with my dc for GCSE’s (not a levels) because they were still immature enough that they needed some incentive to try their best with subjects they weren’t interested in. There was no intrinsic reward for them for revising subjects that they couldn’t wait to drop for A Level. They have good degrees now so it worked at the time and did no harm. I wouldn’t work hard at something I actively disliked and had no interest in for nothing. Do whatever works for your family OP.

Please link., this attitude has pervaded our education system for far too long. Also parents will know what motivates their children and will have a fair idea of what they are capable of.

Well there you are, she's already intrinsically motivated. Job done.

When I was at school, my mum's attitude was more like "of course you'll get good grades, you've always been good at school". Vague, not specific targets. That was more effective, in a way, than if she'd pressured me with nagging. It meant I could set my own goals.

When I got into a very competitive uni, I showed her the acceptance letter and she wasn't even surprised, it was more like "well I always knew they would, as long as you're happy" etc. I remember it vividly, she then started talking about what she was making for dinner. I was like omg aren't you surprised and impressed?! But really, I was doing it for me, not for my mum's praise.

I found out afterwards that she was impressed, from a friend she told about it. But she didn't want to put pressure on and I'm glad.

Nothing wrong with financial reward OP. Teenagers are notoriously bad at motivating themselves to study, and they struggle to connect drudgery now with success in the long term. DS1 was definitely more motivated to study for GCSEs by knowing he’d get some cash at the end. By the time it came to A levels, he was a bit more mature, and studied because he knew he wanted to get to university. You know your child and you know what will work for them. In my opinion, we should do whatever we can to ensure our kids achieve their full potential.

I mean it depends on your aims. Some people are over the moon with just making it to Sixth Form/College, others are aiming for Oxbridge where you really do need to achieve top grades because the competition is just too high. It depends on the kid and on what they're aiming for, but saying that it's all about effort rather than results is just not correct in the real world.

Of course, encouraging grit and determination is important, as is dealing with disappointment and dusting yourself down after setbacks. But in my book, that all comes under the heading of "trying your best".

If a child has truly invested themselves, worked hard and persevered through adversity to produce the very best results that they are personally capable of, is that not worth celebrating?

Sorry, but you're going to fuck your children up if you expect them to perform to some predetermined standards that you have decided are good enough to be celebrated. If they are genuinely doing the very best that they can do - which is what "trying your best" actually means - and that's not good enough for you, how do you think that's going to affect them?

No. All you can ask is that she trues her very best, and works as hard as she can. Give her a reward afterwards, but don't tell her.

This is not my experience at all. Generally children live up to thier parents expectations. Beware of setting the bar too low. Our children are emerging into a global economy, do you think parents in India and Singapore are rewarding " doing your best".?

If you know what motivates your DD then do what ypu think is right. That said, that seems a lot of money! Apologies if I'm repeating anyone, guilty of not RTFT, but be aware of future ramifications. Eg my parents promised my older brother (bright, but did the bare minimum to get by) £10 for every A, this was a lot of money for them. He did get more As with that motivation than he would have done so they considered it money well spent. However, then to be seen to be fair they had to do the same for me (academically capable but also extremely motivated and determined), I came out with straight As and they were forced to say they couldn't actually afford it and offer me slightly less! Fortunately I was never motivated by money and didn't actually care, but you get my point nonetheless.

Surely she wants the results as least as much as you do, if not you have gone wrong somewhere!

My mum did this for me and I would plan to do this for my child. Money and bonuses motivate me in work. I see rewarding childrens GCSE grades as the same thing

We set the targets together and with their teachers. Setting some arbitrary standard would be bonkers.

I don't agree with it. When the time comes we will celebrate in whatever way she wants. I want my dc to be intrinsically motivated to work hard for themselves and their future. Using money as an external motivator is not setting them up for the real world as thats not how it works.

I wouldn't encourage motivation by money personally. It just doesn't sit right with me. It is a pattern I would not want to encourage. It is none of your SIL business though.

But Oxbridge really aren't going to be interested in the kind of kid who needs to be paid in order to get good grades... they are looking for a genuine interest in the academic subject. Not the kind of kid who can't be arsed...

Well obviously the rewards should be set within reach of the person but not so low that they don’t even have to try?

But as an incentive for my lazy teenage self it would have worked. For instance if I couldn’t be bothered to revise it might just have changed my mind and got me a few extra marks. Again not every single person ever but for me 100%.

Encourages people to see financial reward as the only thing of importance. It might be that prioritising wellbeing or the environment is more important. If they learn social skills by hanging out with their mates, these might be perhaps even more important for their future career and wellbeing.

Of course some jobs are really boring and financial reward is the only incentive but they are rarely well paid and not what most people would want their DC to aspire to.

DS was incentivised as described close to top of his year at Oxbridge. No signs of psychological distress.

Isn't it ? I don't go to work for free, few people do. I also paid them to learn their times tables in yr 2.

This is what my parents said to me. My friends all got hundreds of pounds for lower grades than I got, and I got zero pounds! But of course intense satisfaction at my results. I think I just accepted it (somewhat begrudgingly).

I don’t know what I’ll do with my own children when the time comes, but I do know I will have to be fair. I have one particularly academic child but she might not have to work as hard as another to get better grades.

I certainly didn’t do this. Firstly, in my opinion, effort should be rewarded, not results. Secondly, as another poster pointed out, what happens if you have children of differing academic ability? Awful to differentiate in that way. Finally and most importantly, I believe that young people’s motivation needs to come from within, not from an external monetary reward, provided by a parent.

However, as with everything, it’s down to personal choice.

So perhaps he would have performed just as well without the incentives?

Very few of my peers at Cambridge would have needed that kind of parental intervention. The ones that had been put under excessive parental pressure were typically the ones who struggled with their mental health. In most cases, I'm sure that their parents were blissfully unaware of this.

There are scientific studies showing that offering an extrinsic reward for doing something reduces people’s motivation to do that thing when not rewarded. So if you reward children for painting a picture they stop being motivated by the making of art and only want to do it if rewarded.

But then if they have no natural motivation anyway perhaps it’s worth it! And it is hard to reward for effort as its hard to judge. We are a few years off gcses so yet to decide.

I made a glib comment earlier in the thread, but I honestly think that it's a bit deluded to think that you can create uniform intrinsic motivation for exams and hard work.

And that in fact, it can lead to negative outcomes in the workplace - like being treated like shit because you have intrinsic motivation to nurse or teach or whatever.

The truth is that each child who did well or badly in exams will have had a different range of likes and dislikes in their work, coupled with natural talents.

I did my history work for joy, and went over and above. My English work came from a strong talent, and I am intrinsically motivated to the point I've written a five book series of more than a million words. It took me five years to complete the first draft, and I don't care if I don't earn a penny, I love that I did it. I sweated over maths because I had to, hated it, still got an A, but through the blood, sweat and tears that wasn't necessary for English or history.

All those people patting themselves on the back for having taught their children intrinsic motivation are like those first time parents who think they know everything because they've raised one child!